


[i have 28 teeth in my mouth and all of them hurt]

by brittlestars



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28512987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brittlestars/pseuds/brittlestars
Summary: [i have 28 teeth in my mouth,] reads Matt's 4 AM text, [and all of them hurt]Foggy's lost a lot of sleep waiting up for "all clear" texts from Daredevil's burner phone, but tonight's unusual message helps him begin to heal a deeper, lingering hurt in Matt's heart.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 15
Kudos: 84





	[i have 28 teeth in my mouth and all of them hurt]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BeaArthurPendragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaArthurPendragon/gifts).



> A very belated birthday gift for BeaArthurPendragon on the prompt "recovery and/or hurt/comfort."

[ **i have 28 teeth in my mouth** ] read Matt's 4 AM text, [ **and all of them hurt** ]

A frantic Google search told Foggy that humans generally have 32 teeth and he was gearing up for a panicky bout of "I told you" anger when he remembered that he'd helped Matt convalesce after getting his wisdom teeth removed.

Helping Matt come down from the high of the drugs the dentist had used and buoying Matt's sulky spirits had been Foggy's first foray as Matt's personal recuperation nurse, his first training ground exercise in forcing Matt to accept the limited healing rate of his (mostly) human body. Cooking noodle soup and patiently offering spoonful after spoonful had been just another of the many memorable steps of falling deeper in love with Matt.

Since the Daredevil reveal, the nursing lessons were a lot harder, sudden and with potentially deadly consequences. Thankfully, Foggy was a fast learner. There was a lot on the line, his sanity not the least among those things (but also not the most important, apparently).

Fogy blinked down at the burner phone. "You got home hours ago." He replied with a voice message because it allowed him to enunciate his exhaustion, and also because he knew Matt wanted to hear his voice always.

[ **woke up** ] Matt admitted by text.

Foggy quirked an eyebrow, rearranged the pillows in his bed so he could sit more upright. He breathed in and out, settling himself so he could be fully present for Matt, and then made the call.

Matt picked up immediately. "Hey, Fogs," he whispered.

Matt was so tired that his teeth hurt. Throbbed, really. His exhaustion drained his focus, and every functioning sense in him seemed to spiral back to focusing on that pain.

His teeth hurt because they were embedded in their sockets in his jaw. Still having all his teeth was a minor miracle, the sort of miracle that tempted even Foggy to believe, but it was also regrettable because those painful teeth were nestled neatly into his sore jaw.

His jaw was sore because it had been punched repeatedly that night.

His jaw connected to his head, also sore, and his head was still attached to his body. This was another proceeding Foggy was likely to label a miracle, and also regrettable because the rest of his body was currently sore for much the same reasons his jaw was sore and his head ached: repeated punching. And kicking. Mustn't forget the kicking.

Matt had forced himself to stretch, muscles firing off random sparks of pain as they uncoiled. He had moved through a set series of motions methodically, silent through the hurt as he'd learned long, long ago. When it wasn't enough to distract from the pain, he'd texted Foggy.

Foggy clocked the tiredness in Matt's voice, mentally placed the sound on a scale of secondhand pain, and then asked, suspecting the answer, "Nightmare?"

Matt's response wasn't immediate, and that was telling. "Not exactly," he said.

"Okay," Foggy said, accepting Matt's statement at face value and not pressing. He couldn't afford to make Matt skittish by demanding too much like he had when he'd walked out on Matt after That Night. He waited.

"Not that I remember," Matt amended, much closer to the truth.

"Okay," Foggy said again, voice soft and open. He was Googling 'mouth pain' on his work phone, thumb flicking back and forth.

"I'm sorry I woke you," Matt said in a small voice. "Again. I guess I'd figure you'd mute the phone after you knew I got home safe."

Foggy set down the work phone, closing his eyes and collecting his thoughts. "First off: I never mute this phone, and I always keep it charged." Matt knew that, but Foggy was ready to remind him because the gesture was a symbol. It said that Foggy was once again choosing to have Matt in his life 24/7.

Foggy did not mention that the very sound of this phone made his heart race with fear, or that those fears have begun to spark unhealthy desire for alcohol.

Instead, he continued, "Secondly, thank you for messaging me about your, uh, teeth. It makes me feel better when you tell me things." Foggy paused for a second, a realization sweeping through him. "Though, is it okay for you to talk right now? Would you rather text?"

Matt shook his head, setting off another wave of soreness where his jaw cradled against the phone. "No," he whispered. "I like listening to your voice." He didn't say it like it was a pick-up line. He didn't need to; Foggy had already fallen long ago.

"Alright," Foggy said through a fond smile. "I know I usually walk you through breathing or stretching exercises but I have to admit that teeth is a first..."

"I already did my stretches," Matt said. "Still not sleepy."

Foggy knew that "sleepy" and "tired" were very different concepts for Matt. He also had built up a few tricks for helping the unsleepy mind and wary senses come back to the tired body. "Matt, are any of your teeth cracked or loose or anything?" He had to ask first, even knowing that the answer might be the opposite of relaxing. He needed to know so that he could settle, because Matt could somehow tell when Foggy was ill at ease, even over the phone. That was probably a... them thing. A best friend, life partner, edging into more thing, rather than just a freaky senses thing.

Matt forced himself to do an inventory, tooth by tooth. It hurt, but Foggy had asked, and he had promised he wouldn't lie to Foggy about injuries any more. He was trying to keep that promise, as best he could. Hence, the text. The texts were becoming a late night habit, and Matt was enjoying that they often led to Foggy rambling into the phone until he fell asleep. On the lucky nights, Matt fell asleep first.

"They're good," Matt ground out.

"Say thank you to baby Jesus for me," Foggy said, honestly grateful but reflexively falling back on a joke.

"Thank you, baby Jesus, for Foggy," Matt said. His voice was fake-solemn with a bright thread of suppressed laughter.

Foggy didn't hide his own laughter, tilting his head back into the pillow stack and chuckling loud enough to earn a disgruntled thump on the wall from Mr. Posas next door. Four AM laughter felt great, deep in his belly and deep in his heart, but Foggy did eventually reel it in for his neighbor's sake.

"Mr. Posas is offended by your taking baby Jesus's name in vain," Foggy reported to Matt when he caught his breath again.

"Oh, yea? Sure it's not that he's offended by your uh, rather sonorous laugh?"

"Laughter will cure what ails you, Mama always used to say." Foggy sobered a bit, knowing that, one day, laughter wouldn't be able to heal Matt. But tonight --or, rather, this morning-- wasn't that day and Foggy was learning to take what time with Matt he could get, and to guard it jealousy. To fill every moment he could with laughter, rather than pain or old hurts about miscommunication and deception.

"I wasn't, you know," Matt murmured. Some old aches, he was beginning to find, hurt less when he let them out into the air and the light, even if it was the air and the light of 4 AM.

"Hmm...?"

"I wasn't speaking in vain. I am grateful for you, Foggy. Every day." Matt would rather be sore and exhausted but listening to Foggy's clear laugh than practically anywhere else. He wished, not for the first time and not for the last, that Foggy were there beside him, sharing his bed with his warmth.

Foggy swallowed. "Thank you, buddy." He meant it with everything he was. "Thank you." In the dark and now not-so-lonely hours of the morning, it was looking more and more to Foggy like he and Matt had a path forward again, together. Maybe even "together" in a closer way than they'd ever been. He dared to hope, but he wasn't quite ready to dare to let that hope out from the eaves of his battered heart.

Matt didn't respond, just listened to Foggy, down the phone line and also out there in the noise of the living city.

Foggy stayed on the call, picked up his work phone again to search for ideas. He wasn't terribly focused, though, and he was certain none of the ad-ridden articles were written with supersenses in mind. "Maybe do your stretches again, anyway?" He suggested.

Matt nodded again, lighting off more sparks of pain, and set the phone down gently. He moved his body through the motions. It was a familiar rhythm, if not currently a particularly pleasant one.

"Matty," Foggy said several minutes later when Matt was on his knees, arching his back and wading through throbbing bruises in his ribs. "Is the pain sort of all through your jaw?"

Matt shifted his weight, tilting himself over the phone. "The pain is in the teeth but my jaw is sort of tight all over."

"And you tried stretching your jaw, and your neck?"

"Yes." Matt did so again, for good measure.

"Is it possible you're grinding your teeth in your sleep?"

Matt sat on the floor, fumbling a bit to snatch up the phone. He hadn't considered it. "How would I know?"

"Well, it says here that jaw pain on waking up is the most common early symptom. Though I suppose you probably took a chainsaw to the face and that's a more likely explanation..."

"It wasn't a chainsaw," Matt interjected. It had been a brass candlestick.

"But you'd know if this were that sort of pain, right?"

"It does feel different," Matt agreed, "More... diffuse. More hot and less muddy."

"Muddy?"

Matt shrugged. "Pain's got a lot of tastes."

Foggy filed that away for later examination, again telling himself that Matt needed him to accept, not to question or doubt. "Okay," Foggy said.

"This is less muddy." Matt repeated.

"And more hot."

"Yea."

"Okay, so it's an unusual pain, it woke you up, it's all throughout your mouth: your jaw and especially your teeth."

"Yes."

"Says here that grinding the jaw can be a sign of nightmares."

Matt began to tap his fingertips above his knee in agitation. "Okay." It was his turn to accept for the sake of moving the conversation forward. "I don't remember any kind of dream tonight, but maybe."

"Well, the good news is that -- if this is a jaw-grinding kind of problem exacerbating the vigilante-mud-tasting-bruises kind of problem -- the wonderful world of the internet has some solutions."

Matt was bitterly familiar with how his body reacted to most medical "solutions," but Foggy's voice was clipping along, upbeat with the idea of helping Matt.

"You could try a plastic mouth guard," Foggy suggested, chipper. "You probably remember those from the boxing."

Matt's father had used a mouthguard, but couldn't afford to replace it often and so had padded it with scraps of cloth. Even in the dense, sour olfactory landscape of the boxing gym, that mouthguard had been a particularly foul-smelling bit of gear.

"--shaped to your teeth specifically," Foggy was saying. But then he paused. "Oh, that probably wouldn't taste too great, would it?"

It probably wouldn't, but Matt could deal with bad tastes and textures. "I'm not sure I could sleep with plastic in my mouth all night," Matt admitted. "But I could try." It was a peace offering.

Foggy attempted to re-insert some cheer into his voice, but it felt false. "Could be worth a shot," he said.

"Okay," Matt promised. Anything to show Foggy he was trying.

"Actually," Foggy amended, "it's probably not worth the effort unless we're sure you are grinding your teeth in the first place." Foggy's heart skipped at beat at 'we,' and Matt's echoed the flutter, warm.

"I suppose visiting the dentist is off the table." Foggy said.

Matt grimaced. "If at all possible, yes. I can deal with some pain, but dental offices are... they're pretty bad, Fogs."

"Even when they give you the happy gas?"

"Don't call it that. You saw what nitrous oxide does to me."

"The giggles were so _great_ , Matt. I don't know why you don't do it more often."

"Maybe because I can feel all the dental drills and picks and tools in everyone's head in all of the offices around me?"

Foggy cringed. So many once-light-hearted college callbacks were being revealed to be less than jokes. "Sorry, sorry. I remember how miserable you seemed. The point here is for you not to have to deal with pain, don't think I didn't catch you saying that just now."

"It's... it's fine, Foggy." Matt was beginning to regret waking Foggy up with a needless text update. He would cherish the memory of Foggy's belly-laugh, but he was adept at feeling simultaneous guilt and covetous feelings for Foggy.

"It's not fine. Maybe this is one part of your life we can--" Foggy stuttered for a second, tempted to say 'fix' but realizing that held a metric ton of value judgment. "If this is one part of your life we can improve, let's do it! Step one: figure out if you are grinding your teeth."

"I could record sound on my phone while I sleep, maybe?"

Foggy stroked his chin. "That might work. But I have another idea, and it's better."

"It's better because it's your idea?"

"Now you're catching on, Murdock. Really though, it's better because it overlaps with part two, and might actually offer a solution. If you're grinding your teeth and that's caused by the stress of bad dreams, I should be able to observe that if I sleep over a couple of nights, catch you in the act." Foggy knew what Matt was like when trapped in a nightmare: fighting shadow monsters with flurries of kicks and sharp, soft cries of anger and fear.

"Yea," Matt agreed after a long pause, "that could work. But only on the weekend so you can get some sleep after I'm awake."

"Deal. You can repay me with those amazing waffles."

It was Matt's turn to laugh, deep and rich. He found his jaw hurt a little less with that stretch. "Is this all just an elaborate ploy for my waffles? You know I can make them any time, you don't have to watch me in my sleep first."

Foggy sniffed, mock offended. "I am a connoisseur of waffles, good sir, and, as a lofty expert, I would never deign give away my waffle-acquiring secrets." Foggy paused a beat, hoping Matt would crack first. When he didn't, Foggy said, "And also the waffles taste even better when waking up at noon."

"Fine, whatever, Fancy-pants, you'll get your waffles in bed. But," Matt said through a yawn, "none of that spray can whipped cream."

Foggy had been assuming he'd sleep on Matt's couch, like he usually did, but felt it prudent not to point that out at this juncture. He swallowed, hoping Matt didn't realize his slip-up in the seconds it took for Foggy to bring his mind back to forming words. "I'll get fresh strawberries from Abed at the corner market. This weekend work? No drug deals to bust?"

Matt snorted. "There's always drug deals to bust. But, nah. This weekend is fine. I'll do a short patrol so you don't lose too much beauty sleep."

"Cool. Maybe we can get some background done for the King family in the afternoon."

"Sure. I have some ideas for that I wanted to pass by you anyway."

"I'm sure you do."

Matt was tempted to begin talking about the case, and he really was too sore to fall asleep, especially when his alarm clock would be going off so soon, but he wanted Foggy to get a chance at some sleep. "It's a plan," he said instead of the hundred other things he wanted to say, the professions of love and the confessions of hidden pains he'd been keeping secret despite knowing he shouldn't. "For now, good night. I'll, uh, try to get some sleep." He would try. He knew he wouldn't succeed, but he'd try. For Foggy.

"You know," Foggy mused, voice thickening with sleepiness, "if it is nightmares, they say that having someone in the room might help a person feel more safe."

To Matt, there was always someone in the room. Hundreds of people. Entire blocks of the city, crowding all his senses.

But, sometimes, when Foggy was nearby and settled in, calm and steady, Matt could feel more human, could sleep easier.

"Your heart," Matt murmured.

"Hmm...?" Foggy's voice was sleep-heavy and fading.

"Always safe."

Foggy hummed again. "Good. I'm glad, Matty."

Matt, having stretched his hearing to find Foggy's heart, heard it beat steady and true. He settled back into his pillow and felt his sore muscles unwind.

"Thank you," Matt whispered.

"Waffles."

"Anything you want, Fogs."


End file.
